Scientists: a New Type of Hurricane will Devastate the Southern Hemisphere

Scientists are warning the international community about the emergence of a new class of destructive tropical storms, writes the Daily Mail. They're called "gray swans" and have remained unknown to science until now. Experts are describing the new phenomena as extreme hurricanes capable of leveling entire regions to the ground.

Climatologists alarm that gray swans are expected to occur ever more frequently in the future, while the hardest hit will be parts of Florida, Australia and the cities along the Persian Gulf coast. An additional threat to the populations of these regions is that these natural phenomena cannot be predicted until it's too late.

A recent analysis of the upcoming climate changes in the near future has shown that the worst of the devastation will be in the Persian Gulf. In the next 20 years the new type of hurricanes are expected to begin emerging above the shallow and warm waters of that part of the planet, where we have never seen cyclones before. According to scientists, they will be a side effect of global warming.

Tampa, Florida and Cairns, Australia - two locales that often face the effects of tropical cyclones, will be much more vulnerable in terms of extreme weather this century shows the report based on thousands of computer models of the imminent climate changes.

"We can't always rely on history to predict the future, " says head of the study Ning Lin from Princeton University. "Our research shows the future occurrence of hurricanes in areas where there have never been any. We can't judge the scale or damage of the disaster from our experience so far, " she adds.

The name of the new cyclones was inspired by history. Long ago, Europeans did not believe in the existence of black swans until they actually saw one with their own eyes. This is the same analogy Princeton University scientists are applying to the new class of storms.

Scientists warn about ever more drastic changes in Earth's climate. Some of their main reasoning for it is the rapid glacial melting, now evident to everyone. They say that the accumulation of greenhouses gases from human activity leads to greater accumulation of energy in the climate system.

The report reminds of the raging and never-before-seen cyclone Gonu in the southern parts of the Arabian Sea in 2007. Back then the storm took the lives of 78 people and caused $4.4 billion worth of damage. But the research shows that an extreme hurricane on the loose can cause 16.5 ft (5 m) waves, while the wind would be capable of bringing down large concrete buildings.

"Hurricanes, unlike earthquakes, are like throwing dice, " explains Lin, "Just because you've had a severe hurricane last year doesn't mean that it won't happen again next year, and with 3 times greater force, " she adds.